


Leo's Waffle Cabin

by Savoytruffle



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Skiing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-19
Updated: 2011-03-19
Packaged: 2017-12-11 22:02:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/803734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Savoytruffle/pseuds/Savoytruffle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Present day skiing AU. With waffles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leo's Waffle Cabin

**Author's Note:**

> To celebrate the last day of this long and tiring winter season (at least officially speaking), I offer you this little fic I mostly wrote last (long and tiring) winter season. It was going to be a whole long thing, but a girl can only have so many whole long things, so now it's just a short, hopefully fun, one-shot. Based on this Travel Channel show, [“Extreme Fast Food”](http://www.travelchannel.com/Places_Trips/Travel_Ideas/Food_And_Drink/Food/Extreme_Fast_Food), where one of the segments featured a little ski-through shack called the [Waffle Cabin](http://wafflecabin.com/).

“Hi, what can I get you?” L.H. looks up at the next person in line. She’s a perfectly coiffed blonde, who hasn’t bothered with a hat. Just a headband. Her hair is probably sprayed within an inch of its life and likely wouldn’t ruffle in a hurricane. He knows the type.

This one doesn’t disappoint.

“Do you have any low-fat muffins?”

“Sorry, ma’am. Just waffles.” L.H. hates when people put on eight layers of makeup just to ski.

“Well, okay,” the woman says, “maybe some low-fat yogurt?”

“Sorry,” LH repeats, but he really doesn’t mean it at this point. He speaks more slowly. “We have waffles and we have coffee. You can have one or both. Now what can I get you?”

“Do you have like a _small_ waffle?”

L.H. chokes back a sigh. The menu is three lines long. How difficult can this be? “Just the one size,” he says. “Let me get that for you.”

A man appears over the woman’s shoulder. Also, blond, but a dirtier kind. Also without the good sense to wear a hat. “Make that two,” he says. “And a coffee.”

L.H. fights the urge to scowl. “Would you like chocolate sauce on those?”

The man smiles. “Yes.”

The woman frowns. “How many calories does that add exactly?”

L.H. grips the counter. “Couldn’t say, ma’am.”

The woman’s eyes narrow. “Don’t you think you should know?”

L.H. is alone in the booth and the line behind the couple isn’t getting any shorter. He’s had enough. “Look, it’s _chocolate sauce_ ,” he snaps. “I can assure you, it is _not_ part of your diet plan. Do you want it or not?”

“ _James_ ,” the woman whines, looking over her shoulder.

The man – James – looks less than perturbed by the situation. Nevertheless, he peers at L.H. through the window and says, “You know, you kind of suck at customer service.”

“Yeah, well, y’all aren’t the most sterling example of _customers_ I’ve had all day either.”

L.H. catches the beginning of James’ laugh before it’s silenced by the woman’s glare. “We’re leaving,” she announces loudly, directing the glare in L.H.’s direction before turning on her skis.

“But the waffle,” James whimpers, as the woman tugs on his arm. “And the coffee.” He makes a grabby hand.

“ _James_ ,” the woman says again, and the man shrugs back at L.H. before letting himself be dragged away.

L.H. doesn’t spare the couple another glance as he turns his attention back to his long line of easily satisfied customers.

 

 

The next day, L.H. mixes waffle batter, while Amber works the window. Suddenly, her voice turns giggly and breathless, and L.H. looks up from his bowl, curious to see the face of the latest woman to turn his typically blunt, no-nonsense assistant into simpering schoolgirl. L.H. scowls when he recognizes the decidedly unwomanly face. He must have served 300 people yesterday, but he’d know those blue eyes and lush lips anywhere.

Not that he’d been looking.

“Amber,” he calls, “do _not_ give that man a waffle.”

“Boss?”

“I mean it,” L.H. says, crossing the small booth to stand behind her at the window. “Or coffee,” he adds. “No coffee for him either.” He looks out at the man. “Go away. We’ve got customers.”

Justin or Joey or whatever-his-name-was looks wounded. “You would deny a man his coffee?”

L.H. nods, pointing to a small sign sitting in the window, which reads, _Leo’s Waffle Cabin reserves the right to refuse service._

“Is that even legal?” Joel/Jesse asks.

L.H. raises an eyebrow. “Go ahead and keep pushing, kid,” he says. “I’d be happy to fix some things up for you in the back. Real special.”

And, for a second, the kid almost looks ready to drink L.H.’s spit just for the chance at coffee, but then his shoulders drop and he sighs. “You sure know how to hold a grudge.”

“Believe me,” L.H. says, “you have no idea.”

 

 

After that, things get busy and stay busy. It’s hours before Amber gets a chance to confront L.H. on his bad behavior, but when the lull hits, she doesn’t waste a second.

“I can’t believe you sent that guy away!”

“He’s an asshole.”

“Seemed nice enough to me,” Amber says. “Besides, didn’t you see those eyes? And those lips? I mean, Jesus, Boss, those lips!”

L.H. will deny having seen these things to his dying day. “Amber, you’re gay.”

“Uh huh. Gay, not _blind_.” Amber shrugs. “Besides, I’d totally hit that. And, yeah, I’d lose respect for myself in the morning, but I’m pretty sure it’d be worth it.”

L.H. rolls his eyes.

Amber shrugs again. “Just sayin’.”

 

 

“C’mon, Leo, just one waffle.”

L.H. scowls at the pouting face on the other side of the window and flips the sign from _Open_ to _Closed_. Amber’s gone home, and he hasn’t had a customer in at least ten minutes. Because, no, this asshole does not count.

“Go away,” he says. “And don’t call me Leo.”

He closes the window, sets the lock and pulls the shade. He starts his cleaning routine.

 

 

 

L.H. wakes before dawn, sees that it snowed the night before, and grins.

He showers, skips shaving, and dresses warmly. Grabs his skis on his way out the door, flashes his pass and hops the first lift of the morning (running for staff only) up to his booth. He starts mixing waffle batter and fills the coffee maker, makes sure the register is stocked with plenty of fives and ones to make change.

It’s not like Amber couldn’t handle all this, but L.H. is set in his ways and old habits die hard. (He can practically hear Amber coughing _curmudgeon_ under her breath.) He always double-checked the layout of all the instruments and machines in the OR, too. Wouldn’t start a surgery without personally making sure that everything was in its proper place – no matter how long he’d worked with the nurses.

Amber arrives about half an hour before the mountain is set to open to the public, which, L.H. has learned, is about as early as he can get away with making his first run without incurring the wrath of Ski Patrol. Amber’s already busy fixing herself a cup of coffee. He gives her a nod – they both prefer to forgo words at this hour of the morning – and hits the slopes.

These days, this is what L.H. lives for. A good, hard milk run on fresh powder with enough quiet to pretend he has the whole mountain to himself. A few flakes are still falling, the sun finally starting to rise and in those perfect, stolen moments, he gives the mountain everything he has. Surrenders to its crisp, clean air as it rushes past him, hugs its every dip and curve with the whole of his body. Pushes onward, downward, like the run might go on forever.

The milk run is always the best, but he takes several more after, sometimes hard and fast, sometimes slow and leisurely, renewing his acquaintance with his favorite bowls and trails.

By 11 a.m. the illusion of solitude is well and truly shattered and if L.H. is going to have to deal with this many people, he’s damn well going to do it from the safety of his booth. And that’s what he appreciates about life on the mountain – if he can’t be on the slopes all his waking hours, at least he can be in the only thirty square feet of the world that he controls absolutely.

He may be a man who’s lost his home, but now this is his castle.

His tiny mountain sanctuary.

He smiles ever so slightly as he snaps off his skis and pushes his way through its door…

Only to come face to face with smirking blue eyes and smug, pouty lips.

Smug, pouty lips closing around one of L.H.’s waffles, as their owner sits on one of L.H.’s counters – on his _counter_ , damn it – legs swinging and thumping against the cabinets beneath.

“Dese ur sho ’ood,” the lips say – or try to say – around an obscenely large mouthful of ill-gotten waffle and chocolate. They try to smile in L.H.’s direction.

L.H. ignores them.

“Amber,” he says, “you’re fired.”

“Sure, Boss,” Amber says as she heads for the door. “See you tomorrow.”

The man on L.H.’s once perfectly sanitary counter makes no move to follow her.

“Wait!” L.H. says, just as she gets her fingers on the door handle. He looks at the man and back at her. “You’re just going to leave him here?”

“Hey, Jim,” Amber says, “I’m heading back to the lodge for some lunch. Wanna come with?”

The man – evidently _Jim_ – shrugs. “Nah,” he says clearly, finally having managed to swallow. “I’m good here.”

“’Kay,” says his traitorous former employee with one last smile. “Talk to you later!”

The door whoomphs shut behind her.

L.H. stares at it a moment, before turning to glare at the man _still_ on his counter. “Look…” he begins.

“Jim,” the man says. “Jim Kirk.”

“Look, _Jim Kirk_ ,” L.H. says, “I don’t know who you think—”

“I _think_ you have a customer, Boss,” Jim Kirk says, tilting his head toward the service window.

L.H.’s eyes go automatically to the window, where there is indeed a customer. _Damn it._ “Get off my counter,” he snaps before moving to the window. He looks back over his shoulder once more. “And don’t call me Boss.”

 

 

When L.H. turns back around, Jim Kirk has gone from sitting on his counter to leaning against it. L.H. considers this a win.

“You still here?” he asks. No need to be getting friendly or anything.

Jim seems unfazed. “Look,” he says. “I’m sorry about Mandi. She can be kind of a ditz.”

“Mandy?”

“The girl I was with the other day.”

“Mandi,” L.H. growls. He can tell now that it’s spelled with an ‘i.’

“Yeah,” Jim says with a shrug, “she’s an old friend of the family. She’s nice and all, once you get to know her, but sort of high maintenance. And kind of a bimbo.” Jim leers. “There’s this _thing_ she does with her mouth, though, that you would not—”

“Christ, kid, show some damn manners or get the hell out of my booth.”

Jim blinks at him, looking genuinely confused. “You _hated_ Mandi.”

“A lady is a lady,” L.H. informs him. “She deserves your respect.”

“Sorry,” Jim mumbles, looking down.

He appears suitably chastened...for about three seconds, after which his head pops up and he grins as his hand darts out to pilfer another of L.H.’s waffles. L.H. reaches over to smack his hand away, but isn’t fast enough. The kid already has half the waffle stuffed into his mouth.

Clearly manners were not a major theme in the Kirk household.

Jim chews away happily for a few seconds, then swallows half the mouthful before speaking. “Damn, Waffle Man, these things are fucking fantastic. What do you put in the batter? Crack?”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” L.H. mutters, though he supposes he should be grateful the kid bothered to actually swallow _half_ the mouthful in the first place. He does not watch Jim’s throat as he swallows the other half. Really. “And don’t call me Waffle Man.”

Jim takes another too-large bite and pushes off the counter to look around. “Seriously, though, what’s your secret ingredient?” He lifts the lid on L.H.’s bin of pearl sugar – which _is_ , in fact, the secret ingredient – and peers down at it. “Is this it? What is it? Because it kinda _looks_ like crack. Can I taste it?”

Jim reaches his hand down into the bin, but this time L.H. does slap it away, plunking the lid back down.

“It’s the ground up bones of tiny, innocent orphans,” L.H. says with a perfectly straight face. “Keep out.”

Jim laughs. “You’re kind of a sick man. You know that, right?” He grins and waggles his eyebrows. “I kinda like it.”

“Get out of my booth,” L.H. says. “I’ve got customers.” But the words lack their earlier heat.

Naturally, this is when the kid chooses to actually listen. He grabs another waffle before L.H. can stop him and moves toward the door. “You ever thought about franchising?”

“No.”

“Because I could totally help you with that.”

“No, thanks.”

“We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

The hell they will. “Get out.”

Jim actually goes.

L.H. shakes his head and turns to help a customer.

 

 

L.H. wakes to another fresh layer of powder and wastes no time getting to his booth and making his preparations. He finds himself smiling as he mixes the pearl sugar into the batter, but stops as soon as he realizes he’s doing it and opts not to examine the incident too closely.

A man can smile, can’t he?

Big fucking deal.

Amber walks in, making her usual beeline for the coffee, but pauses mid-line to frown at L.H. It occurs to L.H. that he might have accidentally started smiling again and he immediately frowns back at her. She raises an eyebrow at him, and it is formidable, he has to admit, but she is not a morning person and, ultimately, an amateur. L.H. shows her what a real eyebrow raise looks like, daring her to even think about mentioning the smile. She tilts her head and studies him for a moment, considering. He’d like to think he’s intimidated her, but L.H. knows the real debate is whether or not to let mere conversation stand between her and coffee.

In the end, coffee wins, and L.H. is well aware that if he sticks around long enough to let her actually drink any of it, there will be words, and that two of those words will be “Jim Kirk,” so he slips out the door while it’s still percolating.

He can hear Amber calling him a coward, even if it’s only in her own head.

 

 

L.H. skis down the Blue Square run below his booth and makes his way to the chair for the resort’s one and only Double Black Diamond. The chairs are still running staff only, so there’s no line to wait in. L.H. moves into position, glancing back over his right shoulder as the chair comes up behind him.

There’s a sudden flash of color to his left.

L.H. whips his head around to see what’s happening, but the next second the chair is there and he sits down automatically.

The chair is on its way up the damn mountain before his brain can even process the fact that fucking Jim Kirk just popped out of the control station and onto the platform and is now sitting next to him.

“Morning, Bones!” Jim chirps.

L.H. seriously considers pushing him off the chair. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Jim smiles. “I thought we could talk.”

“I don’t talk and ski.”

Jim’s smile doesn’t falter. “I thought we could ski.”

L.H. snorts. “Don’t waste my time, kid. I’ve been skiing since before you could talk.”

Jim smirks. “What a coincidence – so have I.”

L.H. raises an eyebrow. “Late bloomer?”

Jim laughs. “Fuck you.”

They ascend for a minute in silence.

“How about a deal?” Jim says. L.H. turns to find Jim staring at him, assessing. “If I can keep up with you on the slopes right now, you meet me for dinner and we talk franchising.”

L.H. shakes his head. “I’m not franchising and I’ve already got dinner plans.”

Jim studies L.H. again, running his tongue over his lips as he nods slowly. “Fine,” he says, “meet me for drinks, then, and we’ll fuck.”

L.H. bites back his kneejerk refusal and takes a long look at Jim.

At those eyes.

At those lips.

“Fine,” he echoes, letting his own lips quirk up just a bit at the side. “ _If_ you can keep up.”

 

_Fin._


End file.
